Wild Horses
by bunniesgonomnom
Summary: "What do you do when you're too nervous to sleep?" One shot. No spoilers.


_Title: Wild Horses_

_Summary: "What do you do when you're too nervous to sleep?"_

_Disclaimer: I bet Andrew W. Marlowe doesn't have to puppy-sit on Thanksgiving, unlike myself._

_A/N: This idea has been floating around in my head for the longest time, and by that, I mean that I've played this scenario out in my head quite a few times for the past few weeks. I've used my own characters in my head, but I feel as though this would be very true to Castle and Beckett._

_Also, this is entirely unrelated, but I would like to thank everyone who reviewed and favorited my last piece. No matter how typical or cliche this may sound, I would smile and squeal whenever I read a review that you guys posted. You all are wonderful, beautiful people. - Samy_

* * *

On Wednesday night, Kate was restless yet again.

After the pain she'd faced on Sunday, she'd been unable to sleep on Monday, and Tuesday had turned into tossing and turning at her own place, and since it was Wednesday and she'd come into the precinct with bags under her eyes and a snap in her tone, Castle had insisted that she stay at the loft for Wednesday. As always, she'd been the stubborn one; she'd lied and told him that yes, she had been sleeping, and yes, she was absolutely fine, but as always, he didn't believe her insistence. She didn't know if it bothered or comforted her how easily he could read her ticks.

Sunday had been terrible. Oh, Sunday had _truly_ been terrible. She didn't let her mind dwell on Sunday too much, but she still saw flashbacks, little photons of scenes she'd witnessed on that terrible day. There was the look in the suspect's eyes as he doubled over from being shot; the feeling of his blood over her hands as she pumped his chest still lingered upon her fingertips; Castle's desperate plea of _Kate _as he'd found her alone and screaming in the warehouse was all too familiar. The suspect had held a gun toward her and fired, and had his accuracy not been off, she would've matched his stance on the floor of that warehouse. Had she not shot back, she would've also been a corpse on a table that Wednesday night.

The suspect had been the killer in that case; his partner had made a confession later on. At least I have that closure, she thought, but even though she felt closure, she didn't feel fulfilled. And then that night? For the first time in months, she'd truly panicked.

She'd cataloged every nightmare that she'd had about her shooting, written them down in a little grey notebook so that she could remember every detail and triumph over her fears. The notebook was her adult way of refusing a nightlight; by writing things down, she could collect her thoughts and show herself that all she'd seen had been a few brief scenes that would never matter again.

On that Sunday night, she'd cataloged a new nightmare.

Flashing lights, red and blue, had flooded her vision, and as herself in the dream lifted their head and neck up from a gurney she'd somehow been tied onto, she looked down and could see the brash red stain across her navy police uniform; looking closer, she could see the sharp wound of a bullet to the chest. Collapsing back, her dream self couldn't breathe, and everything around her seemed so claustrophobic, and as she glanced to her right, she saw Castle on a gurney. His blue, blue eyes were facing hers, and as she met his glance, she saw that life had drained from his look, that his pupils had dilated to a large, black stone in a sea of blue and white. Two paramedics were dragging a sheet over his body as her gurney was hoisted into an ambulance.

Her other dreams had recounted the shooting mostly; some of the nightmares had chronicled the weeks afterward, but she mostly had visions of the things that had already happened. However, this Sunday night dream had been the first time that he'd seeped into her mind. Never before had she watched him die in her dreams.

When she'd startled awake, with sweat making her hair matted and her breath gone, she'd had one instinctive movement left in her body; she'd immediately called Rick. She'd been lucky to hear him pick up; after all, it had been two in the morning. He'd interrogated her about what was going on, and she'd assured him that she was fine while on the inside, she was taking breaths of pure relief from the sound of his voice.

After that, he'd looked at her differently all week, as though he had overflowing concern. She hadn't admitted to the nightmare; after all, she hadn't had a single one since Richard Castle had welcomed her into his soft, warm bed on that raining night in May. Months and months had passed, and now she was having the nightmares again and again to the point where she wouldn't allow herself sleep.

And so on Wednesday night, she laid underneath his gray comforter and with Rick pressed against her body (she hadn't been surprised to learn that he was a cuddler, but she could swear that her want to be held was still foreign to him after all of the months they'd been together; part of her didn't even mind), and for hours, she'd been unable to sleep.

Checking the clock on the bedside table, she saw that it was approaching two in the morning. Even parts of the city had gone to sleep; the partiers were heading in and getting out their blazers for work the next day, the late-night business-people were all packing up their bags, and the workers at Duane Reade were finally getting to go off shift. Somehow, she felt so alone in thinking that she was the only one awake for blocks and blocks, and part of her wished that Castle had been plagued with the same insomnia so that they could both just lay there in sleepless bliss as he brainstormed for Nikki Heat and as she read whatever book she'd bought that week. Oh, and after Sunday? She didn't even have a book at her bedside and instead drifted through the day in that untethered world of not knowing what to read, finding herself going back to Russian literature she'd read in college and reviewing a page or two of Nikki Heat.

At two in the morning, Kate Beckett was beginning to realize that she was a wreck.

She collapsed back against him, cuddled up closer as she embraced his warmth; she hadn't truly felt warm for days. Even underneath his giant comforter, she felt as though the heart of winter had possessed her body. She'd even gone to bed wearing sweatpants and a grey sweatshirt (that belonged to Rick, and she'd worn it not only for warmth but also because it smelled like him, and damn it, he smelled so _good_) in order to keep warm.

Surprise washed over her as she felt him move beneath her.

She cursed in her mind as his eyelashes fluttered open. Staring down to her, he saw this shell of Kate, this ghost of the woman she was, nestled underneath the heap of comforter she'd wrapped around herself, and her meek eyes stared up at him with apology.

"I'm sorry," she whispered as she moved closer.

He swore that he would never get used to having her body pressed to his; four years of lusting could surely do that to someone.

"It's fine, Kate," he said softly as he held her closer.

They had a terrible habit of falling asleep in various positions, from being on their sides and embracing to being on their stomachs and with his hand, well, _possessively_ draped over her ass. That night, they'd both been on their backs, and the pillows had raised their heads higher than they usually would've liked, but he'd been able to fall asleep anyway; rushing around with the police still made the writer tired even though it had been years since he'd spent his days solely moping around in his underwear and occasionally pulling a Tom Hanks with certain songs by Bob Seger.

Bringing his hand through her hair, he looked down to her and held her closer.

"What's wrong?" he whispered to her.

"Nothing," she said almost instinctively.

"Beckett," he cooed, playing with a lock of her hair, "you've been saying that all week, and I can tell that something's up."

He could read her like a book, that idiot author. Part of her didn't even mind.

"Alright," she admitted, shifting. "I'm not fine."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No."

"_Should_ you talk about it?"

"Probably."

"Ah."

He pulled her closer, looked into her eyes.

"If you want to tell me, then I'll listen," he said, the honesty in his voice and eyes almost overpowering.

She took a deep breath, broke his glance as she exhaled.

"The shooting on Sunday," she began. "It brought back memories of my shooting."

She could feel him tense, feel the hitch in his breath though he tried to hide his sudden nervousness.

"Nightmares?" he asked.

She nodded as she watched his brain make connections, saw the synapses put together her nightmare and the early morning call she'd given him. All she could do was nod in response.

Maybe it was her tiredness, or maybe it was the weightless feeling she had from admitting what had been happening to her, but she still couldn't pinpoint what made her force out her next words.

"I watched you die, Castle," she whispered meekly to him, her eyes staring down.

At that, he didn't even try to hide his anxiety; his skin was tense, and for a few moments, he stopped breathing. God, why had she been so stupid in telling him that? Now he wouldn't be able to sleep, and-

"Kate?"

"Yes?"

He brought his hand to her chin, tilted her face up to stare into his blue, blue eyes.

"I'm here, Kate," he said softly, honestly. "I promise you that I'm not going anywhere and that I'm here. You will always have me right here for you. I promise you that I won't leave your side, and it would take much, much more than a murderer or a disease or a freak accident to keep me from loving you."

As she took his words in, she crawled up to hip, met her lips with his for a slow, luxurious kiss that seemed to last longer than she'd anticipated, not that she would complain about it. The wrap of his lips on hers made her sink into relaxation that much quicker, and as she let go of his mouth, coaxed her forehead near his, she brought him closer.

"Castle?" she asked as he wrapped his arms around her.

"Yes?"

She breathed in slowly.

"What do you do when you're too nervous to sleep?"

"What?"

"I know you; you have tricks for every stress-related problem in the book."

"Very true, Beckett."

"So what's the one for sleeplessness?"

Leaning up, he went to his bedside table and pulled up his phone. He turned it on, flipped through a couple of pages until he found a certain page. Watching him intently, she kept her eyes on his face until he turned the phone's speakers up.

"Whenever I can't sleep," he said, "or, frankly, whenever I'm nervous, I listen to this song. It calms me down. Worked wonders on Alexis as well."

"Huh."

He set the phone down atop their comforter, and as the song began to play, Kate recognized the tune easily.

"The Stones," she commented. "I'm not surprised."

"Do you not like the Rolling Stones, Detective?"

"I didn't say that."

"Yes, but you were not saying it very,_ very_ loudly."

The slap he faced for that was well-deserved.

"It's just been a while since I lasted listened to them; that's all," Kate said. "My mother adored them. Sounds funny, you know? All she ever listened to were songs by Cyndi Lauper and the Stones."

"Oh," he said, and he quickly went to turn the song off (her mother was such a sensitive subject still), but she moved her hand to stop his.

"No, I like it," she said, looking up to him.

And the glint in her eyes made him believe that.

She moved back to him, cuddled up against his side as Wild Horses played between them. The chorus came in; she could almost find herself mouthing the words as they were sung. Somehow, Castle had been vastly correct about the calming abilities of this song, and within moments, she found her thoughts ceasing, her fears beginning to become more and more minimal. And what he'd said before had been true, about how he refused to let her go, and he was proving that now. When she'd been with Josh, she would've never had a night of this kind; if she'd been forced into insomnia, she would've gone the entire night without sleeping, and he would've questioned her the next day about her tiredness, and she would've lied and claimed that she'd just had a long day the day beforehand. Tom Demming had been a similar story; he would've given that soft disposition, but she still would've felt so judged that she wouldn't have told him the truth. And Will, Will Sorenson? He would've woken up, seen her, and told her to go to sleep before falling back into slumber.

With Rick, she was both honest with him and with herself. The last time she'd been so open about what she felt had been back in the eleventh grade, when she'd begun to end her wild-child phase and had told her mother about her first truly serious boyfriend, one who didn't smell of wet flannel and pot brownies.

And, God, Johanna would've_ adored_ Rick...

Kate's thoughts were interrupted as Castle brought his hand to hers and squeezed, as if he could tell that she was thinking about things that likely would make her more stressed. How he could read her so easily was something she would never understand, and maybe she didn't want to understand his Wiccan ways; if his instincts could let her feel this good after days of not sleeping, then she would let him read her until he found a song to calm her down any day.

"Hey," he said, looking down to her.

"Hey," she said, glancing up.

"You sleepy yet?"

She nodded quickly.

"Want me to turn it off?"

She shook her head.

"Finish the song, then?"

She nodded again.

Pulling the comforter up over her arms, he nestled her into bed, made sure that as soon as the song ended, she could drift into the blissful sleep she'd been waiting many nights for. She curled into his warm embrace, and as the final chorus of Wild Horses came in, he watched her shut her eyes but didn't dare turn the music off. For a while, he wondered when exactly Kate Beckett had learned to let herself fall asleep with him, when she'd finally had enough nerve to let him see her in her most innocent, most fragile, most vulnerable state. Sure, he'd seen her power-nap at the precinct before, and he'd seen her asleep on his couch back when her apartment had been burned down, but seeing her here, in his bed and with him alongside her, was inherently different; she allowed him to look, let him embrace what she was, gave him permission to see her in this delicate state. Some things of this kind were what kept him amazed by her, and every day, he thanked some higher being for being allowed to love this beautiful, beautiful woman.

Some days, he couldn't understand how he'd ever been so lucky.

The song ended, and within moments, she was sound asleep, her breaths heavy and her eyelids shut. He was slow to move his phone from the bed to the nightstand, and once he'd managed to remove the device from the bed, _their_ bed, he brought her closer, pulled the comforter even higher. And even though he wouldn't admit it, he loved it when she wore his sweatshirts, adored how the giant garments seemed to swallow her thin figure whole because damn it, she was so beautiful, and he loved to see her soft and cozy. Before he let himself fall back to sleep, he leaned down to her and breathed her in, made sure that she would stay this comfortable for the entire night. Maybe, just maybe, he would let her sleep in an extra ten or twenty minutes while he made their coffee the next morning. No matter what would happen, he was going to let her sleep, and nothing, not even a murder, would keep her from getting the sleep she desired most.

He brought kisses to both of her eyelids before he went to close his own

For the rest of the night, she was immersed in the most restful, dreamless sleep she'd ever had.


End file.
